🏮 Lantern

Hand-held candle lantern: seven LEDs behind the glass, a rechargeable 18650 cell, and a 433 MHz radio listening for your remotes. The main fleet — twenty identical units.

See it working

A lantern running its candle scene from a remote press.

Power

Each lantern runs from one 18650 cell on a charger board — charge via the board's USB socket (red = charging, green = full).
On power-up the lantern shows a brief warm-candle flash — that's the "I'm alive" cue — then goes dark until a scene fires.
There's no soft power switch: off between shows means the physical switch, or pulling the cell.

WiFi is the biggest battery drain. Show mode (WiFi off on first remote press — see the main guide) is what makes a lantern last a whole performance.

Pairing remote buttons

Lanterns work with ordinary 433 MHz hobby remotes. Any button can drive any scene, and several remotes can drive the same lantern.

Open the lantern's web page and expand Slots.
Press + add slot (or open an existing scene card).
Press Capture — the button pulses while the lantern listens.
Press the remote button you want. Its code lands in the card instantly (up to six codes per scene, so spare remotes can share scenes).
Choose what the scene does — a palette colour, an effect, or Off — then Save to prop.

An open scene card named White: the captured binary remote code, a paste-a-code field, colour and effect dropdowns, and Capture and Test buttons — An open scene card: its captured remote code, the colour and effect it fires, and the Capture / Test buttons.

The Last RF code bar at the top of the page shows every code the lantern hears, which is handy for checking a remote's battery or identifying an unknown button. You can also paste a known code into a card by hand.

Scenes on a lantern

Lights setting	Effect
Any palette colour	steady, or `candle` (flicker), `pulse` (slow breathe), `twinkle` (sparkle)
Off	lantern dark
no change	this button leaves the lights exactly as they are (useful in mixed-prop groups)

A typical show setup is two buttons: one scene with the warm Candle colour + candle effect, one Off scene. The colour lands first and the effect eases in a beat later — that's intentional.

Worth knowing

Held buttons fire once. Holding a remote button doesn't re-trigger the scene ten times a second — the lantern ignores repeats until you let go.
Interference is normal. The radio hears constant background noise; lanterns filter it. If a scene ever fires by itself, another remote in the venue shares the same code — recapture with a different button.
Twenty lanterns, one setup. Configure one lantern, then use its Fleet page to push the config to the rest. Use groups (e.g. lantern-silver / lantern-black) if different sets need different looks.